Application of the FDTD Method to Analyze the Influence of Brick Complexity on Electromagnetic Wave Propagation

This article presents a numerical analysis of the effects related to the propagation of electromagnetic waves in an area containing a non-ideal, non-uniform, and absorbing dielectric. The analysis concerns the influence of electrical parameters, the structure of the building material, and the layering of the wall on the values of the electric field intensity. A multivariate analysis was carried out with different conductivity values. Homogeneous materials (e.g., solid brick) can be analyzed using the analytical method. In the case of complex materials containing, e.g., hollows (brick with hollows, hollow block), it is necessary to use the numerical method. The FDTD (finite difference time domain) method was used to assess the dependence of the electric field intensity on the layering, the length of hollows in bricks, and the material loss. In order to check the correctness of the adopted numerical assumptions, a series of tests related to the discretization of the model was carried out. The article also presents the influence of changing the length of hollows in bricks on the values of the electric field intensity at a frequency of 2.4 GHz. The instantaneous field distributions and maximum values of the electric field intensity are presented. In the model with a two-layer wall, regardless of the conductivity, the field values were the same for the two models, where the difference in the percentage of ceramic mass in the brick was 8%. A 12% decrease in the percentage of ceramic mass in the brick resulted in a 15% increase in the value of the area between a single-layer and a double-layer wall made of clinker bricks. At a conductivity of 0.04 S/m for a single-layer wall, the field values were similar for all brick variants.